On Thursday, November 5, 2020, The PS of The Ministry of ICT and Innovation (MINICT) and The Senior Representative of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA Rwanda) co-chaired the ICT Backward-Looking Joint Sector Review meeting which brought together all ICT Sector Working Group stakeholders to engage in policy dialogue and to ensure ownership, accountability and transparency of national medium term development strategies’ implementation and monitoring process.

Some of the objectives of the meeting included the assessment of progress in achieving sector objectives with focus on 2019/20 targets for; NST1 indicators, selected sector performance indicators and their corresponding policy actions, presentation and discussions on budget execution performance for 2019/20 and highlighting of priority areas (maximum of five) for the 2021/22 fiscal year that will inform the planning and budgeting process for institutions in the sector.

Delivering his speech, PS Yves Iradukunda thanked the partners for all the work and support for the Ministry and the Government of Rwanda and reminded them that the need to do more has increased given the situation of COVID19.

“We’ll continue to see progress, the sector has been enabling the economy, whether in agriculture, education or health. The benefits of having invested heavily in infrastructure, education and digital skills, have been a tremendous success in response to the challenging times where we are. But the need to do more has increased given the situation of COVID19.” Said The PS.

“We appreciate that efforts are continuing from various partners and we really want to make sure we are collaborating even more to respond and secure the right progress over the next few years.” Added The PS.

According to the National Institute of Statistics Rwanda, 2018, the ICT sector recorded a growth of 22% by 2019-20; solidly contributing to the growth of Rwanda’ overall GDP. The official statistics of ICT contribution to the GDP is relatively small, however, this is due to the fact that the statistics do not factor in contributions from ICT solutions and IT service contributions to other sectors, which provide significant contributions to the overall economy.